What if vampires lived on Long Island? And some of them no longer want to kill? And they were determined to destroy a corrupt and vicious vampire government?
That’s the premise of Carnelian, the debut horror-fantasy novel of Flanders native Jules Devito that follows a group of millennial vampires who challenge the status quo of a vampire society that operates in the shadows.
The novel is an urban fantasy story, a subgenre that puts supernatural creatures into a contemporary setting. Parts of the book are set on the East End of Long Island, where the main character lives and the bodies of vampire victims surface around locales like the Peconic Bay.
The story follows Jesse, a veterinarian who becomes a vampire and joins a group of other millennial vampires trying to overthrow a vampire government, Devito said. Instead of sacrificing humans for blood, the vampires are taking blood pills to keep themselves satiated. The pills, however, come with the need to do shady — at times deadly — favors for the government.
The main cast of characters are millennials who disagree with the ways of the older vampire generations — leading to intergenerational conflicts, Devito said. Power dynamics between the characters and institutions like the blood pill industry and the vampire government — the titular Carnelian — help drive the plot, she said.
“I think it’s timely with [themes] of overcoming systems that are in place — and then sometimes not overcoming them,” Devito said. “And then sometimes the bad guys [win] and [have] too much power.”
“But,” she added. “it’s got a happy ending.”
The novel is also a story with LGBTQ characters.
“I just think we have to make, especially in this time right now… more space for LGBTQ stories [and] characters,” Devito said. “[F]iction should be a mirror, right? So when you look around, you don’t see just a bunch of straight white dudes. You see all sorts of different people and all sorts of lifestyles.”
Devito, 52, grew up in Flanders and, after briefly living on the West Coast, came back to her childhood home to take care of her mother and raise her son. The book is based partly on the “small town experience” you get on the East End — where most people know one another and get involved in each other’s business.
“One of the characters is under the threat of losing her home on Long Island, and becomes like a big thing,” she said. “That becomes a big theme — having to leave, move farther out and move away from what you’ve known all your life.”
The cover of the novel depicts a scene in a cemetery — which an artist based on a photo Devito took in Riverhead Cemetery. It depicts a graffitied mausoleum pasted with a poster of a blond vampiress holding red pills over the phrase: “Only a few pills a day to keep the doctor away.”
Devito has been wanting to write a story like Carnelian for years, she said. She started writing vampire stories as a student at Long Island University in Southampton. While taking a few pre-med classes in biology and physiology, she thought about how interesting it would be for vampires to have to manage chronic conditions — and ended up using that idea in her creative writing classes.
A massage therapist by trade, Devito said she has been writing stories since she was a kid. “I wrote my first book when I was five. My mom typed it up and put it in some construction paper and stapled it together for me,” she said. She started trying to sell her first novel in 2010. A little less than 15 years later, her dream was realized.
She said it took her about six months to write the first draft of Carnelian, which she finished in 2019. She has spent the last few years working with editors, agents and publishing houses to get the novel published. The first publishing house interested in the book closed its doors the day before Devito was set to sign her contract, she said.
Finally the book — Devito said was on its 15th draft — was published in September by Inked in Gray Press, a small independent publishing house.
Right now, Devito is taking a break before jumping back into the saddle and writing another novel. “I would like to get published again, but if I don’t I’ll probably still write some stuff and show it to my friends or whatever,” she said. “You write because you like it.”
Carnelian is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, directly through its publisher, Inked Gray, and other booksellers.
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